Jeremiah 17:9-11

C. The Deceitful Human Heart Jeremiah 17:9-11

TRANSLATION

(9) The heart is deceitful more than anything and incurable; who can know it? (10) I am the LORD who searches the heart, tries the mind in order to give to man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds. (11) A partridge that broods but does not hatch is he who acquires wealth unjustly; in the midst of his days he shall leave it and in his end shall be a fool.

COMMENTS

The heart, according to Hebrew psychology, was the center of one's intellect, emotions and will. Modern psychology would agree with the observation of Jeremiah that the heart is deceitful. Few have insight into their real motivations. The heart of man is incurable or desperately sick or, according to the King James Version, desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9). There is within man a tendency, a natural inclination to do that which is wrong. Only when one allows the Holy Spirit to dwell within the heart can he hope to walk in the paths of righteousness. While the natural man is unable to know his own heart God does search the hearts of men. He tries and tests the mind (literally, the kidneys), a term which in Hebrew psychology indicated the emotional aspect of man. On the basis of His divine knowledge of the inner thoughts and feelings of men, God is able to dispense justly both reward and punishment (Jeremiah 17:10), This doctrine of reward and punishment appears also in Jeremiah 32:19 (cf. Psalms 62:12; Job 34:11).

In Jeremiah 17:11 Jeremiah offers an illustration of the kind of deceit which is referred to in Jeremiah 17:9. Those who acquire wealth unjustly are like a partridge that broods but does not hatch her eggs. The partridge lays many eggs but also has many natural enemies who hunt her nest and destroy her eggs. So is the man with ill-gotten gain. He shall be deprived of his wealth as swiftly as the partridge who begins to sit upon her nest but is soon robbed of her eggs. In the midst of his days the man who has made wealth his god shall leave it all behind. His attachment to the material and temporal will prove him to be a fool in his last desperate hours. A fool in the Old Testament is not necessarily one who is stupid but one who is lacking in moral understanding and in the ability to distinguish between right and wrong.[208] One cannot read this passage without thinking of the foolish farmer spoken of in the parable of Jesus (Luke 12:16-21). Building bigger barns was uppermost in his mind. He had forgotten that life is but a vapor of uncertain duration. In an unexpected moment this fool was summoned into eternity.

[208] Freedman, op cit., pp. 120.